Invitation to a village

After quite some time, I got another opportunity to visit a nearby village. This visit was quite different from most of my previous visits. I went after the Village Headman invited me to visit the village and advise them on how to develop the place. This village, Patna in Manika block of Latehar block was a village where the Project on Community Based Rehabilitation for the Disabled was working. 

The Village Headman was disabled himself. It was quite a sad story on how he got a bad limp. He slipped and fell from a bund when he was studying in the third standard. From his description, it looked as if he had a posterior dislocation of the hip which was never managed properly. 

A meeting was arranged where the villagers could discuss issues with me. However, there was a small hitch. Most of the villagers thought that I would be late like most of the other guys who get invited to the village. 

So, I had time to walk around and see the village. Below are few of the snaps from the walk . . .

The violet colored plants are wild tulsi.

The water body on one end of the village

Recently, there was a government program promoting organic farming using compost. These are compost pits made using government grants. Unfortunately, nobody was sure about how to make the compost.

The dried looking fields. The farmers were trying to plant wheat

The lunch we got in the village. Rice with pigeon pea curry (dhal). Side dishes included mashed pigeon pea leaves made in two different ways.

My jottings after the visit to Patna village –

1. The segregation on the basis of caste within the small village of about 180 families affected the progress of the village.

2. Similar to most of the villages in our region, they had abandoned traditional cropping which included millets. That had spelt doom for them. Members from about 80 families had already migrated to other places in search of work.

3. There were 4 graduates in the villages. They were running pillar to post in search of a job. None of them was even exploring the option of self-employment/enterpreneuing.

4. There was a medium sized lake on one side of the village. The villagers were not able to use it for commercial gains.

5. The villagers had heard about the intervention we were doing in the neighbouring villages of Ghutwa and Ekta under the Climate Change Project. They wanted us to help them out too. There are challenges. Patna village is in Latehar district whereas the Climate Change Project is being implemented in 30 villages of the Satbarwa block, which is in Palamu district. Considering the enthusiasm the village had to see change, I would have to oblige them.

Disability Day Celebrations - Latehar

The final part of our celebration of the International Day of People with Disabilities. This was organised in Latehar, our neighbouring district. The Community Based Rehabilitation Project works in 4 blocks of Latehar district - Barwadih, Manika, Latehar and Chandwa.

We thank the Lord specifically for the program today as we had some untoward incidents of social unrest. There were couple of more landmine blasts on the way to Latehar just before the team was returning from Latehar after the program.

Snaps from the program . . .

Lighting of the lamp

Welcome song by children from Carmel Asha Kendra

Dr. Roshine welcoming the gathering

Dr. Harold Hansda giving the felicitation

Mr. Manoj, a disabled friend singing a song

The guests

Dance by students from Carmel Asha Kendra

Tiny tots from Carmel Asha Kendra doing an action song

The audience

Village Visit - Latehar District (2)

Few more snaps from our visit to Latehar . . . cont'd from the previous post.

The walk through the green corn fields was refreshing

Entrance to a village

Ploughing fields

More agriculture work

Scene from a village . . .

Another small lake which we passed through

More rice fields

Village Visit - Latehar District (1)

Last week, we had a supervisory visit to Latehar district as part of the Community Based Rehabilitation of the Disabled. The scenery of the villages we visited was awesome. Few snaps from the visit. 

I had real difficulty in selected the best snaps . . .

A river through which we had to wade across.

Sr. Banosa, Rachel, Sunita along with villagers walking back

The stunning snaps of the rice fields. The hills of Mahuadand are in the background.

A small lake which we saw on the way . . .

Snap through the windshield of the jeep. 

Rice grown by the Systemic Rice Intensification method. 

The visits included long walks through such paths . . .

A snap which I got on the drive back . . .

Amazing . . . isn't it? 

The snaps are quite evident of how beautiful the place is. 

Exposure Visit

Couple of days back, we did an exposure visit of the agriculture work that Samaj Vikas Sanstha, the social work wing of the Daltonganj diocese is doing in Chandwa/Balumath block of Latehar district. 

Below are snaps from the visit . . . 

This is how it looked when we left the hospital. Visibility of around 5-10 metres.

Interacting with the villagers

Fr. Regi interacting with our staff . . . 

The traditional washing of the hands of guests by the villagers . . . 

Fried rice balls dipped in hot jaggery. Never knew that such a simple recipe can be so tasty

Vermicompost . . . 

Innovation for a pulley . . .

Our team did some amount of walking around the fields . . .

Potato . . . Lucky to escape the cold 

Chick peas . . . 

System of wheat intensification . . . 

A monstrous radish . . . should be at least 5 kilograms . . . 

A family harvesting potatoes . . .

Returning home . . .

Bandh . . . Time for a break

We have been having quite a lot of problems in our region which has been reported quite a bit in the media. I’m not here to comment on who is right or wrong . . . but a bit on how life has affected us at NJH, because of 2 days of bandh which has been called tomorrow and the day after, It is true that we’ve not had general strikes for almost 3 months since September 2012.

However, I have a hunch that things are not going to be the same at least for some time. There are multiple reasons for the same.

Coming back to the way things go haywire at NJH when there is a bandh. . . or do we get a well deserved break as one of my friends recently put it.

We had registered a team of our hospital staff to go to the Christian Medical College, Vellore for a training in Critical Care. With the amount of very seriously ill patients whom we’ve been dealing with of late, I had been planning this since last year. 

Now, the team of 4 was supposed to leave on Monday to board their train from Ranchi. Because of the bandh, the team had to leave today for Ranchi. Now, they would be sitting jobless for the next 2 days in Ranchi.

Then, we were planning to visit Ranchi on Tuesday for some major purchases. However, the bandh for two days means that Tuesday would be a busy day in the hospital. Which would mean that I’d rather be in hospital on Tuesday.

In addition, I realised that it would be a rather relaxed day in hospital on Monday. So, I could take a chance of doing the work in Ranchi on Monday.

Presto, I had to take a decision on Saturday afternoon. To go to Ranchi in a short notice of 3 hours . . . or not. I remember that my better half and the kids had been looking at the prospect of couple of days away from hospital. I suggest that we all go together.

Well . . . you can imagine us getting the 3 kids ready with all the packing for 3 nights away from home. Angel is quite well adapted to this sort of sudden planning. So, there was not much problems.

I had quite a lot of work to settle in the office. I was out by 3 pm and the whole family plus the critical care team was out of the hospital campus by 3:30 pm.

We reached Ranchi by 7 pm and had dinner at one of the hotels which was not a very good experience for the money we spent. 

But, we were surprised by the fact that it was less cold in Ranchi than it was at NJH. It was a welcome relief for all of us . . .

Am I relieved that I’m away from NJH ? ? ? Well, that’s something we’ll decide once we return back. Because, when I left the hospital, the Acute Care was full. There was no bed left. Then as we drove, I got a call about a boy who had come with an overdose of Bhang . . . a local form of canabis.

More on the Bhang and the patients in Acute Care in my next post. 

I shall relax for the next 2 days.

(This post was written on Saturday, 12th January, 2013 and was not posted because of poor internet connection)

Disability Day at NJH . . .

The Community Health Team at NJH observed the World Disability Day today. The day is officially celebrated on December 3rd. But, logistics demanded that we celebrate it on today. It was a grand success.

For a place like NJH, we have discovered that the issue of disabled people being brought to the mainstream is quite a new thing. There is so much to be done. It was more than couple of years back, when we started asking questions about people with disability in the communities we served in. 

What did we find - - - 

1. Very few knew about the disabled in the community. I asked for numbers from my colleagues in the Community Health department. After 2 weeks, they told me that there must be a maximum of 20 people with disabilities in the whole block (the total population of Satbarwa block is approximately 60,000). Then about a month later, the staff told me that there will not be more than 40 people in the block. By God's grace and help from our team at Community Health Central Office, we got couple of projects for the disabled. An official house to house survey started in the block. So far, we've already crossed 800 people with disabilities in the block. I'm sure we'll find more. 

2. The next question we asked was about their well being. Nobody thought that anything good would come out of a person with disabilities. One of our retired staff had a daughter with special needs. Everybody talks in hushed voices about her. It was quite a sight to see her all cleaned up and interacting with our staff after we intervened. There was another boy with hearing impairment . . . the parents could not believe us when we told them that the boy can achieve quite a lot in life. And his home was on the lane bordering the hospital boundary. 

3. The last thing we found out today. In the whole block, there were only 17 disability certificates issued till date. And almost all of them were above the age of 50 years. And the last one was issued quite a long time back. 

We know that we can make an impact in the region on the lives of the disabled. 

Of course, the snaps from the program today. 

Students with special abilities from the Carmel Asha Nivas, Latehar present the welcome song

The Civil Surgeon, Palamu - Dr. Gopal Shrivastava addressing the gathering

Lighting the lamp. 

A song sung by the people with disabilities from our neighbouring villages

A dance presented by children with disabilities from the Carmel Asha Nivas, Latehar

The audience enjoying the proceedings

In communities such as ours where basic issues like neglect of women and children continues to beg attention, our efforts in mainstreaming the disabled is going to be a major challenge. We request your prayers and well wishes as we serve.